Air Canada's naked 76

[fokker]

Have a butcher's. This looks nice, dunnit?

http://www.achorizons.ca/en/issues/2005/november/sparkling_silver.htm

[dontdoit]

It looks like s***e. It looks worse than the "duck egg blue" incarnation. "Give us the cheapest paint you've got...oh no, sorry, no money left..scrap that idea as well, no paint today thanks."

[d192049d]

Must agree looks smashing....

Now the economics:-

2000 man hours @ lets say $200 per hour = $400,000

+

Materiels {any one have a guess here??}

+

Down time / non revenue 12 days unless combined with major checks

+

Lest say a round $500,000 K / $24,000 = 20 years to break even

Yep good scheme where do I sign it off

M

[r3500vdp]

Sorry.. $200/hr for paint stripping ? I thought it was a different kind of stripping that made that much money. Definately more than I make hacking away at a computer.

[Dr Illitout]

It looks 'orrible from a distance, god knows what it looks like close up!! Naked aeroplanes are rather like naked people, the older they get the worse they look and Air Canada has a very old fleet. This must be like seeing your Granny on page three!!

Rgds Dr.I. (Blessed with the body of Adonis)

[Inverted81]

personally i like the look of it, shows off the "pure engineering". yeah looks a little grubby, but it harks back to the "golden era"

One Q though, unprotected Alluminium = oxidation and corrosion on exposure to water etc, so i'm guessing there is also some kinda protective coating applied also = extra costs..... :cool:

[PaperTiger]

oxidation and corrosion on exposure to water etc, so i'm guessing there is also some kinda protective coating appliedOnly has to last until the 787s arrive, when it will be dumped in the desert, resale value =~ $0. Not worth long-term protection :(

[The African Dude]

PaperTiger - you really think that they would be willing to take the risk of operating a corroding aeroplane?! I don't...

[Farrell]

Love it!
Very nostalgic - reminds me of being young and brings back all the good vibes of why I wanted to be a pilot, which is fast being ripped away by technology and those stupid glass cockpits - give me a clapped out DC-8 over an A380 any day.

[MarkD]

AfricanDude - doesn't seem to hurt AA much operating bare. Can't say I like the new scheme - at least the "designers" can't screw up bare metal much.

[Jetstream Rider]

When you look at aluminium you are looking at an oxide coating. You never see pure aluminium in day to day life as it oxidises so quickly. It won't "rust away" like steel, the worst you'll get is a pitting of the surface and that is only in a salt environment. American's aircraft do pretty well.

[Rollingthunder]

Yup, it's called "Alclad" in various grades. It has to be handled very carefully as the coating is so thin. One scratch and that section of metal becomes scrap.

[Mercenary Pilot]

If I remember correctly, the fuel savings for using an unpainted 747 are about 3% annually.

THE JAPAN TIMES - Unpainted planes are more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than painted ones, Japan Airlines said Monday after a nearly 10-year study on the performance of an unpainted 747 cargo plane. The plane, introduced in August 1992, has helped the company cut back on paint and other chemicals, and has saved up to 2 million yen a year on fuel expenses as it is about 200 kg lighter without paint. JAL repaints its other planes every six years. The company plans to compile the results of the study in spring. U.S. airlines such as American Airlines and Northwest Airlines also operate unpainted cargo planes. But the companies regularly have to mobilize dozens of employees to polish the planes' bodies to prevent corrosion and rusting. JAL originally began the study to determine how long the interval should be in polishing the body. The airline gradually increased the interval from four months but found the rate of corrosion was unaffected even if polishing was conducted at one-year intervals, adding that scratches are easier to see on the unpainted plane. The company said it plans to operate unpainted passenger planes in the future.

[The African Dude]

Mark, what I was trying to get PaperTiger to think about was the very fact that there is Alclad applied - not that they would NOT operate the aircraft, rather that they would have ensured that there was no way it would corrode. FWIW, I preferred the duck-egg blue!

[MarkD]

Apparently the next aircraft up, fin 618, had some test areas stripped - the surface did not polish well so it will not be stripped as the other one was.

[wingman863]

It looks bloody awful. Very scratched and dirty in places.

[EI-CFC]

I have to say, it looks horrendous to my eyes!

[PaperTiger]

what I was trying to get PaperTiger to think about
Most kind of you to try and help me with my thought processes :hmm:

Alclad is metallurgically bonded aluminium or aluminium alloy coating which is anodic to the core alloy to which it is bonded, thus electrolytically protecting the core alloy against corrosion. You don't just slap it on with a brush.

There are lacquers which can be applied for added protection and/or appearance. I doubt AC has gone to the trouble, and as a previous poster pointed out, airliners do not "corrode", they fatigue.

[The African Dude]

PaperTiger,Alclad is metallurgically bonded aluminium or aluminium alloy coating which is anodic to the core alloy to which it is bonded, thus electrolytically protecting the core alloy against corrosion. You don't just slap it on with a brush.
"The common name for a type of clad wrought aluminum products, such as sheet and wire, with coatings of high-purity aluminum or an aluminum alloy different from the core alloy in composition. The coatings are anodic to the core so they protect exposed areas on the core electrolytically during exposure to corrosive environments." (Google - "define:ALCLAD")

I think you are supposed to reference your sources!!

With respect to corrosion, all metals are susceptible to it if there is an environment containing corroding elements (e.g. salt) and humidity. Airliners do corrode; they corrode faster as a result of intergranular corrosion which propogates during the repeated cyclic loading encountered in successive flights - corrosion fatigue. If an airline, such as Air Canada, does not take some measure of protection against it then it can shorten the life of the aircraft. I can't be sure, but I wouldn't bet on any airline sitting down with two graphs, one showing service entry dates for the A380, the other showing lifetime of 767's based on accelerated corrosion fatigue, and identifying whether it's worth the risk to not bother with the protective procedure. I would bet that they would be more interested in preserving their asset, so that after all the effort spent on reducing its weight, what with all the changing of the core composition and clever anodic things the man in the suit making the finiancial decisions can see some type of payback!

Whether corrosion is prevented by cladding, diffusion bonding processes or by electrolytic adjustment of the metal properties to make it less susceptible to reaction with its environment, or even by protecting it from corroding elements in the first instance with some form of paint coating, is irrelevant. The thin-walled skin structure through which the airframe load path runs must be preserved.

What I wanted you "to think about" was that Air Canada will be aware of this and will have compensated for it somehow. I was not attacking you personally, merely offering my opinion as a materials engineer.

[FakePilot]

Is it possible during the paint scrapping some of the metal has come off and contributed to the weight loss?

[PaperTiger]

Airliners do corrodeWe may be at semantic loggerheads here, they do not surface "rust" (the common interpretation of corrode) simply through interaction with the environment. I accept your point on corrosion fatigue, which in my non-scientific parlance I was also trying to make.

I can't be sure, but I wouldn't bet on any airline sitting down with two graphs, one showing service entry dates for the A380, the other showing lifetime of 767's based on accelerated corrosion fatigue, and identifying whether it's worth the risk to not bother with the protective procedure.That would be the B787, and I would not put this kind of bean-counting past AC (but I could be biased ;) ).
The older 767-200s (like #613) are fully amortized and some have already been scrapped, AC is just trying to wring a couple more years out of them for the lowest outlay possible. IMO of course.

[MarkD]

Well there's no 787s until 2010 or so so AC are going to have to make at least some of the 762s last...

[The African Dude]

Sorry, 787 - how is the paint coating removed, then? FakePilot has an interesting point about metal loss.

[barit1]

Bare Alclad has been around a long time - prewar DC-3's were more often unpainted than not. Air Canada's predecessor, TCA, had Lockheed twins in bare Alclad. I once saw a USAF base commander's T-29 (CV-240) so highly polished that it hurt my eyes to look at it in the sunlight.

I've heard arguments on both sides (bare vs painted); Bare is definitely lighter, but paint will smooth over minor gaps at skin joints, rivet heads etc. and thus reduce profile drag. Anybody know of a definitive study?

[PaperTiger]

Anybody know of a definitive study?Not sure it qualifies as 'definitive', due to the source :suspect:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_05/textonly/fo01txt.html

"Though the wieght of paint adds to fuel consumption, the fuel-cost savings offered by polished surfaces is outweighed by the cost of maintaining the polished surfaces. However, because this difference is a very small percentage of operating cost, many operators decide to paint or polish their airplanes based on marketing and environmental impact considerations."

[Seloco]

So, are they going to take their 787s in beautifully polished bare plastic then.....

[Rollingthunder]

Saw 613 outside the south hangar at YVR this morning. Looked pretty sharp in the fog.

[Bus429]

Why do you think Airbus don't deliver unpainted aircraft? (Have a look at an American Airlines' A300-600, for example)